Can Religious Texts Be Used as Historical Evidence?
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In a recent Reddit thread, someone asked about the practice of infanticide. In response, I said the following:
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Are Late Sources Unreliable?
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
We often hear from critics that the hadith canon was written hundreds of years after the death of the Prophet (s) and therefore it is unreliable.
Hadith Transmission is not like Chinese Whispers / the Telephone Game
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
There is a popular attack given on hadith as well as orally transmitted history in general (even outside of Islamic civilization) that it is unreliable because it is like the telephone game (also known as Chinese whispers). For those unfamiliar, the telephone game is when a group (usually of children) sit in a circle. Then, someone starts off with a message and whispers it into the ear of the next person. That person then whispers it into the ear of the next person, and so on until the circle is complete and the last person says the message out loud. It is then compared to the original message, and usually totally off. This supposedly proves how oral transmission is unreliable.
Can God be both Merciful and Just?
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
“Justice means to give someone exactly what he deserves. Mercy is to give someone less than he deserves. God therefore cannot be infinitely/perfectly Just and infinitely/perfectly Merciful at the same time.”
Famous atheist Dan Barker once made this argument in a debate. Although there are many answers to this dilemma, I wanted to offer one thought.
Let us say that a man murdered your child. In Islamic law, you have the option to a) have him executed or b) forgive the man and have him pay blood money.
Let us say you pick option b, which is the more merciful option. Has justice not been served? Of course it has. That is because you, as the injured party, have the choice as to whether you want vengeance or not. The murderer is brought to justice in both a and b, because justice here is dependent on the will of the injured party.
Allah owns all of us, and all sins are sins against Allah first and foremost. He can therefore choose to forgive whatever He Wills on the Day of Judgement without this being a violation of justice. All of our missed prayers, our anger, our lust, etc. can be forgiven.
Some thoughts on the Protestant Revolution
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
I’ve become more sympathetic to the Protestant revolution as a result of learning more about the systematic abuses of the Church circa 1200-1500.
Why would you follow an illiterate 7th century desert-dweller?
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
If you are a Muslim, you would have heard some variation of the above either directly or indirectly at some point in your life. The genesis for this thought comes from a foundational belief that permeates the entirety of modern culture and is at the heart of humanism. That belief is progress.
The Purple Skeptic Community
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Imagine you lived in a world where half the population was colour blind to the colour purple. You are one of the people who can see the colour purple. Imagine, then, that among the colourblind half of the population, they began a “skeptic community” about whether the colour purple actually exists, or whether purple-believer half of the population was simply delusional – imagining things, making things up, asserting the existence of a colour for which no scientific or objective evidence could be produced.
Abortion Doctors are Breaking the Hippocratic Oath
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
The Hippocratic oath is a pledge taken by physicians of the ancient world principally to swear to “do no harm” to their patients, and to retain strict confidentiality. Variations of it have emerged in all subsequent civilizations which built off of Greek medicine. Modern doctors are required to abide by a code of ethics which is the historical descendant of the Hippocratic oath. It goes without saying that the Hippocratic oath is a great achievement in the history of the human race.
Muslim-Atheist Dialogue: Are Childhood Marriages a Universal Evil?
Introduction
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In my recent video on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s interview with Jordan Peterson I mentioned an example of something which is actually attributable to Islamic primary sources and which modern Westerners would find reprehensible, namely, child marriage.
